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Nobel laureate economist Milton Friedman cautioned that the great error in public policy is judging programs by their intentions rather than their results. That warning hangs over the New Brunswick Energy and Utilities Board hearings into the proposed natural gas plant in Tantramar. In the debate over this project, aspirational energy-policy claims collide with the sobering lessons now unfolding across Europe and in Australia.

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Let’s agree that climate change is real, and modern industrial societies carry a moral obligation to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. The disagreement lies not in the objective but in the means.

The only scalable path to deep decarbonization, which can also reliably sustain a modern electrical grid, is a decisive commitment to nuclear power. Until that capacity comes online, lower-emission natural gas remains the most practical bridge between climate ambition and the physical reality of keeping the heat and lights on.

At the same time, any credible energy strategy must address two pressing provincial priorities: strengthening economic productivity and reducing NB Power’s growing debt burden. These realities should guide the decision on the Tantramar gas turbine plant.

Last month, Chancellor Friedrich Merz ruefully acknowledged that Germany’s Energiewende – Europe’s grand experiment in slashing emissions while shuttering nuclear plants – has morphed into a strategic debacle enfeebling the national economy. If it hadn’t been for France’s surplus nuclear power crossing the border, Germans might already be reacquainting themselves with the less-romantic features of preindustrial existence.

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If Germany exposes one folly of green orthodoxy, South Australia reveals another. It escapes the Dunkelflaute – those prolonged windless, sunless lulls that cripple Germany’s grid – only to be overwhelmed by its climatic opposite

Last Australia Day, as Adelaide temperatures hit 42°C, solar generation flooded the grid with surges that operators struggled to shed. But come nightfall, 1,500 MWh of grid-scale batteries quickly depleted, forcing operators to seek backup from neighboring states. By midnight, about half the state’s electricity came from gas, with additional imports from coal-fired Victoria.

Grids cannot secure reliability by endlessly scaling batteries. Storage is neither carbon-free nor inexpensive, once overbuilds in generation and transmission are considered. This is especially the case in harsh climates that reduce efficiency and shorten battery life. Each added increment of storage requires such overbuilding, which drives escalating costs with very questionable decarbonization returns.

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South Australia provides a costly cautionary lesson. The average household already pays roughly C$2,020 each year for 4,526 kilowatt-hours, about C$0.45 per kWh, nearly triple what New Brunswick families pay for the same privilege.

At least South Australia’s demand peaks when renewable output is strongest. In New Brunswick, as in Germany, electricity demand crests on frigid February nights, when solar production is negligible and multi-day wind lulls are common. Four-hour batteries provide only fleeting relief. During winter shortfalls lasting a week or more, storage would still depend on fossil-fuel or nuclear generation for recharging. What, then, is the point?

To imagine that 1,000 MWh of batteries can replace firm generation such as the Tantramar plant is an exercise in arithmetic denial.

Sentiment cannot override physics or balance sheets. Until nuclear is attainable, natural gas is not a moral lapse but a practical necessity, the only scalable option capable of stabilizing the grid, strengthening the economy, and helping retire NB Power’s debt.

Tom Mueller is a former biomedical researcher, retired teacher, and columnist for Brunswick News.

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